Both of my boys slept in our bed with us until they were right around 4 months old. You will never meet anyone in your whole life more against the concept of co-sleeping, but come off it. Those first months don't count, AT ALL.

Anyway, they slept with us and when 2of3 was 4 months old, making 1of3 27 months old, they embarked on the great journey called SHARING A ROOM. Bunk beds are as important in our world as toilet paper. Maybe more so. I won't elaborate. You're welcome. When they were 1 and 3, we moved into a house with 3 big ol' bedrooms, and we offered them their own rooms. They declined, loudly. We continued to offer them their own rooms until we scaled down to a 2 bedroom apartment, and they had no choice. Sucks to be them.

They've never been bothered by sharing a room; I don't think they can imagine it any other way, really. I shared a room with both my brothers until I was 6, and I LOVED it. Excepting the occasional sleepover, they have bunked down together for every one of the past 2,972 nights.

Tonight, we're resetting the counter. Tonight, they sleep in separate rooms. And not just because I chained one of them to the radiator in the basement, either.

We live in a 4-ish story townhouse, with a den/rec room/whatever at ground level, a main level with the living room/kitchen/dining room and-or family room depending, a bath on the next 1/2 level, the upper level with 2 bedrooms and the master suite, and then another bathroom on the top 1/2 level. Long story short, we have three bedrooms. The boys share the middle one, and that's fine, but they're getting BIG. Their stuff is getting big. Their clothes are big. Their shoes are huge. And they're old enough that they need a little *cough* personal time every now and then. The room they share isn't big enough unless I stack the bunks, and then only barely, and if I stack the bunks, I have to make the beds, and fuck that shit.

I decided yesterday to use the dining room as a den area, just like everyone else in my 'hood does, and clear out the basement. And put my 10 year old in it. 2of3 protested wildly. He said that it wasn't fair, that they had pillow fights every single night and how could I take that away from him? He said he couldn't sleep alone because the closet scared him. And then tonight he saw a room with none of his stink-ass older brother's crap in it, and he promptly sold the fuck out.

Guess who is currently freaking out? Me, that's who, and it was MY idea.

My baby isn't 20 feet from me anymore. If he wheezes at night, I won't hear it. If he has to pee, he'll have to climb two flights of stairs. If he has a bad dream, he'll have to climb three flights of stairs IN THE DARK to get to me. If he wanted to sneak babes in, I'd never know. When the zombies come to eat our brains in the middle of the night, they'll get him first.

My basement is not in any way set up to be a bedroom. We're going to have to get a room divider and a wardrobe, and he's going to have to use a space heater in the winter. That is, of course, a really old woman's perspective. All he sees in his own desk, his own bookshelves, his own crap on the walls, and his independence. He sees privacy, and I see a growing man in a little body that used to sleep, happily, curled up in one of my arms in the middle of my bed.

I can almost not even picture that baby anymore, and I rejoice for him, but it's kind of killing me slowly. I'm just not ready, yo. I'm starting to think I never will be.